Star Fleet Battles Open Community

Note that I may not have all the caps or undersocres 100% correct.

Leslie Richardson = The_Geek
Andy Koch = Droid
Jason Gray = Sir_Hood
Mike Johnson = Akira
Brook Villa = Up_All_Knight
David Cheng = DaveC (not 100% on this)
Pat Hill = Dread_Lord

I don't remember the ones for Ken Stuart, Ron Brimer , or Robert Grey off-hand.

In the summary table, he's listed with HYD, in the matchups he's listed as KLG. I imagine he's in the Klink, since you probably wouldn't want to start us off with a civil war...but wanted to get clarification.

It's a TD7H!

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually bad nights for me, and the second and fourth Monday in a given week are out.

However, I can play to very late since I work from home.

Ken is furryrooster. I'm pretty sure. Might have a capital in there somewhere.

Peter, I don't think there was an email. Paul, can we add a notification like that in future?

Akira (TKR) over Dread_Lord (KLI)
Turn 1: I plot 30/15/21, Pat plots 20/24 (i'm assuming this and other speed changes were all plotted). Pat launches his SP early and it opens before I have a chance to shoot anything at it. We close to R13 and I launch an enveloper. I keep going straight a few hexes, hoping he will turn off, but he doesn't and I am forced to turn to avoid R8. Pat turns away after I do and runs the torp out to str 30, phasering it down another 8. We end the turn 19 or so hexes apart, me facing F off his #5. The SP drones are R4 from my ship. Pat discharges 2 std and 2 OL disruptors.

Turn 2: I plot 4/14 and weasel off the drones. Pat goes 21/25, eats the enveloper for 22 on impulse 1, then turns back to face me. I launch a second enveloper around R14 and turn away again to (hopefully) deny R8. Pat decides to run through the enveloper at full strength and gets a shot at R8 on my #5 around impulse 25, which he takes and misses with 2 of 4 disruptors( 2OL, 2std). He rolls well on phasers though, but fails to down the shield as I had 5 pts of general reinforcement. Impulse 29 I have a R5 shot on his #6 with 4 P1s and an F-bolt but do not take it. Impulse 30 I begin to wonder if that was such a good idea as Pat is closing the distance and setting up another OL shot next turn. I launch the F instead to discourage his approach and use phasers to kill a couple fast drones (type-Is).

Turn 3: I plot 14 all turn, Pat plots 21/10. He charges through the F, taking it on his #1 for three internals (fluff) and fires on my #4 at R4 on impulse 5, missing with one OL but again doing well with phasers (50 pts total). I have a 12-pt brick on my #4 but still take 14 in, losing 2xP3, 1xP1, 2 power and fluff. I am also firing on his #6 so no mizia opportunity, so I hold fire. I turn A, he turns B. I deal with two more fast drones (heavies this time) and consider firing at R5 again. I haven't been tracking his power as closely as I should, but I figure he'll be slowing down later in the turn and I might get an opportunity to hit him with a launched F, so again I hold fire. He does slow to 10 around impulse 20, and I burn battery to jump to 24 and give chase. We end the turn at R4, his #3 on the perfect oblique to my #2. I fire an F-bolt and 2xP1, doing 5 in and killing a P2, a warp, and a disruptor. Not bad at all.

Turn 4: I plot 0 with a speed change to 10 on impulse 16, mainly because I risk exposing my down #4 if I keep moving ahead. I have an S up this turn and figure it will keep him from getting any closer. Pat also plotts speed zero. In EA, I decide against enveloping the S partly because I thought I might bolt it on impulse 1 since would likely either outrun or weasel a launched torp. But there was also the outside chance that Pat would suspect a 30-ptr was fake and ignore it. So on impulse 1 I launch a standard S and fire 2 more phaser-1s at his down #3, doing 9 in (p-2, drone, 2 power, fluff). Impulse 2 he tacs his #2 toward me and unloads with 3xOL and 5xP1, doing 35. I have 9 reinfocement on that shield and take no internals. The torp gets to him and he decides to gamble on it being a fake, unfortunately it is real. He takes another 14, killing more weapons and power. Pat concedes as he has lost a lot of weapons and I can still overrun him with phasers this turn.

My thanks to Pat for a good game, he didn't make it easy!

according to subscriber search is: kps1 at cornell dot edu

T1: I go 26 with some 16 at the end and an enveloped plasma, holding a suicide shuttle just to hide a point of power, and just in case. He goes 24/17/30. We close. At R15, he launches his fighters and tractors them. At about R13, I launch the enveloper. The Hydran turns off. He slips away, accelerates to 30, and I turn in. Near the end of the turn, I slow down to 16. He turns up facing A, (me C) to get one of his and the fighter gatlings on the plasma. He shoots it up a bunch, and then lands the fighters on 32 'cause I get to range 9.

T2: I go 24 all turn, rearm my plasma, put some power in HET and tractors, and on a lark, keep my suicide shuttle armed. He goes 17/26. Impulse 1, my enveloper hits for 18 after his 3 gatlings, all of which sticks. He turns in, so I launch 50 plasma at him. He slips in to get R5 on my #6, fires 5xP1 and 2x standard HB. One of the HBs misses, so my shield holds at a few boxes. He speeds up to 26 and turns off, I turn in. My 50 points of plasma hit him after 6 hexes, but between the gatling on my F torp and the S torp being fake, he loses 9 boxes on his facing #5. I fire 4x P1, roll bad, and make him spend a couple batteries to keep the shield at a box. I launch my real S torp at him, and he runs some. After a couple impulses, he launches his fighters again (we are at R4 or 5 at this point), so I HET from A to F so I get my unfired phasers and plasma F in arc of them. When it looks like I can catch him at R3 and try a prayer tractor, I speed up to 27 and launch my F torp at one of his fighters. I get to R3, he tractors the fighter that I launched my plasma at (IDing it the impulse before), and I try and tractor him with 3 power, but he breaks it. I fire 3x P1s at his ship doing a few internals over a couple impulses (hitting 2x fusions and hull, and using up his battery power) and a P3 at his untractored fighter, but only do 2 damage. He slips to take my plasma S on his #4 for 22 (no internals but down shield) and then turns in, leaving his tractored fighter on the map to die to the plasma F, and his other fighter closes. I can turn off from the fighter and let it shoot me at R3, or overrun it and hope I can do something about it before it kills me. I turn up and get to R1 from his fighter. It doesn't move next impulse, and can't fire yet. Only one thing to do--suicide shuttle! It has been more than 4 impulses since the HET, so I launch my lark SS at the fighter, which can't do anything about it, and the TLM has nothing to shoot it down with. Next impulse, the SS kills the fighter and I get R2 on the Hydran's down shield with my last P3. I roll well, do 4 internals, and hit warp, warp, hellbore. Stimpy thinks for a while, and surrenders to go eat German food.

He had 2 down shields and was down HB, Fus, Fus, 2x Warp, and both fighters. I didn't have anything good to shoot him with for T3, but had no internals. It wasn't impossible for him to have pulled the game out at that point, but it was a pretty big hole, so resigning seemed reasonable.

We spent a bunch of time looking up the Chaff rules, as the SFBOL has a Chaff option twice (once in 6B6, which is when Chaff usually drops, and another that is for the Dogfight Interface), and the second one leads to confusion. 'Cause unless you are in an official dogfight, a fighter can only drop chaff during the 6B6 Seeking Weapon phase.

Thanks to Dan for a fun game!

Well, you can launch it after Plasma and Drones--it is in 6B6 after both of those, so if someone launches a drone at your fighter, it can try to save itself with chaff. But it can't launch chaff to distract a seeking shuttle, as shuttles come later in the impulse. I did this to Dave Cheng's Hydran one year at Totalcon and it won me the game, so I remembered it :-)

One of the problems with chaff is that it is really hard to find when it happens in the SOP--there is no chaff line in the Basic rulebook SOP or the Advanced Missions SOP. Or the Tournament Reference SOP (as the tournament reference doesn't seem to have an SOP). I had to dig out my Master Annex File G1 to find the SOP with chaff on it.

Turn 1
Fed at 16/17/24 facing A, Klingon at 15/26 facing D. Scat Pack out on imp 3, releases later with 2 x IM and 4 x IF. Fed turns right to B and slips out a while, then turns to A on imp 31. Klingon turns left to C, then Right to D to come in behind Fed's FA. The fast drones traveled direction D most of the turn while the medium ones went C. Both ships finish around range 10 off of each others #6 shields, but out of FA. Klingon ejects 4 OLs.

Turn 2
Fed plots 16/26(on 15)/17(on 27). Klingon plots 15/26(on 22). Fed turns left to F as soon as able and Klingon turns left to C. Fed slips left and eventually gets all 4 type IF drones centerlined, killing them using all LF/L and RF/R p1s as p1s. Klingon launches 2 drones facing B, which turned out to be costly. Klingon then turns to F on imp 13 and fires on Fed's #1 at range 3 with 4 OLs and 5 p1s. 1 OL misses and Klingon does 45, none of which Fed stops. Fed loses both LF/L p1s and 1 p3 + 3 warp, but no photons. Klingon also launches a 3rd drone. Imp 14 Fed turns left to E for range 2 oblique, #2 shields facing. Klingon fires 2 p2s and 2 p3s, doing 17 to Fed #2. Fed Alpas with 4 full OLs, 4 p1s and 1 p3. All photons hit and the damage total is 88. Klingon stops 5 with batts and takes 53 in. It's not pretty as he's left with 22 total power. Fed runs to E for rest of the turn while Klingon does a counter-clockwise turn to finish about range 14-ish. Klingon's #1/2 facing Fed 3/4. This is approximate. Fed has 4 drones trailing him directly aft. 1 at R2 and 3 at R3.

Turn 3
Fed plots 10/12 (on 4) so drones can catch up for execution. Fed deals with drones, then loops counter clockwise to wind up hugging the wall facing C. Klingon slowly closes and turns to D to finish turn about range 6 off Fed #5 with #1 facing. Klingon launches 1 drone as he only has 1 rack remaining. Fed launches shuttle on imp 31. Both ships repair 2 p3s each at EOT.

Turn 4
Fed plots 12/17/8, Klingon plots 20/10/5/4. Klingon closes and eventually gets R3 shot out the #6 shield on Fed's #5 with 3 OLs, 4 p1s and 2 p2s. All OLs hit this time and the total is 41. Fed takes 17 in and the only weapon hit is a phaser 3! However, 3 batts are blown off and the HET the Fed wanted to pull would have to wait. Klingon turns off to E and shoots down Fed shuttle (manned) while Fed loops around to A, F and E to pursue. Fed uses 2 batts to convert SC from 8 to 14 so he can close the gap. Klingon fires 1 p2 at Fed's down #1 and does 4 in, finally getting a photon. Imp 31 Klingon launches a type IV to discourage Fed from achieving R2. Fed slips out and both ships end the turn facing E at range 3, #6 facing Klingon #3. Fed 1 hex behind perfect oblique. Fed repairs another p3 and 1 box on the #1. Drone is R1 off of Fed's #6.

Turn 5
Fed Plots 22/17/8/4 while Klingon Tacs. Imp 1 Fed tractors drone. By imp 3 Fed has slipped to range 1 off of Klingon #3. Fed's alpha does 47 internals to Klingon with some hot phaser dice and Klingon concedes.

Both players made some mistakes and I don't feel that either of us outplayed the other. I was fortunate to get strong alpha strikes and trading 15 internals for 53 on the opening pass really made life easy for me.

Great game Bill and good luck in the future rounds!

I am almost hesitant to mention this, but...

I am leaving this Friday for the Tour of Missouri. I return on Wednesday, the 9th, and then immediately am headed of to Monterrey for vacation. I will return from that vacation on the 16th.

This gives everyone a de facto extension to the 9th at a minimum, and a possible de facto extension to the 16th. Your games are *due* on the 7th. But I will count all games reported by the 9th and it is even possible (though I would not count on this) I will not be able to get to the brackets again until the 16th.

So, if you have not played and reported your game by the 9th, then you will need to send me, with evidence, your attempts to schedule the game. Any games with no reporting at all by the 9th (or, again, possibly the 16th) will be entered as a loss by both sides. Those with some records will be handled as the cases best deserve. It is one of the nice things about Swiss. There is no need to wait or hassle players. Assigning a loss to both players is an actual option.

We have played 8 Turns, tough close battle we have both taken 20 odd internals, the TKE has little in the way of shields but my Klingon has used all 4 shuttles!

We should be finished by the 16th if that is ok?

Cheers,

-Jason G

But Brook and I did have a near miss on Saturday afternoon. He is working alot this week, and my holiday weekend is a busy, golfy, drinky fun fest. I am not working Firday, so maybe we'll give it a try on Thursday night.

Gregg and I have had a hard time matching up. We are trying for tues the 8th.

... in a savage dogfight.

This LDR ship took his damage like a champ: both ESGs survived several little mizia volleys to deliver the range 2 ram. Both Gatlings survived until the bitter end. If only my Hydran took damage this well!

My biggest mistake was letting him shoot my #1 shield with his 6 Ph1s on turn 1. That, and running through the full-strength enveloper dropped my #1, making it much tougher to chase him down.

We had a three-turn knife-fight where my lack of a #1 shield really did me in.

Good, bloody game!

-DC

Ron Brimeyer defeats Gregg

Leslie and I have got our game going. Still too early to say who is going to win. But with downed shields on both ships the Hbs will do short work of someone soon.
My guess we can play again next time the coming weekend.

Yeah, kids don't show much respect for daddys past time, do they?:)
Tnx for the game Leslie. I understand now why you offered to play so early in the morning. You should have explained that, being 7 hours ahead I could easily play in the middle of the night your time, even!:)

BTW, I played pretty lousey IMO and am glad I didn't make any mayor errors.
I should have had no problems getting behind you really considering I fly the orion, but no, that was too good thing to do:) You otoh played very stable. Was like attacking a mobile bats:P (Good call going speed 12)

Good luck with next game!

Maybe. All games do need to be resolved. However, a number of RAT issues are also avoided. No need to actually have a game played - just assign both players a loss. No need to have replacements - Swiss does not rely on any particular number being available. Adjudications not, necessarily, as important - so even online there is not as much of a need to avoid them. Both formats have advantages and disadvantages when it comes to speed. Swiss is probably slower, since I expect every round will go its full length until the tree. But a lot of the things that slow down a single-elimination tournament are also not present.

Mostly my fault as we have a ridiculous weekend schedule lately.
I can play Wednesday I think and if we dont finish just give me the loss, Brook has tried harder than I have to get it done.

As a matter of fact, my weekend schedule is totally shot probably till after Thanksgiving:
I have a long weekend in New England
A weekend in Pittsburgh for the Bengals game
I have a game in Buffalo
A brew festival
Council of Five Nations, and...
I'm supposed to be remodeling a kitchen on the weekends.

As I said before; you sure got your priorities right:)

Brook and Andy are done in three days, one way or the other.

Hey we're matched up in Round 2! I have this Sunday free pretty much all day. Post here or email me with your availability please. My email is:

rushfanatic_2112 at yahoo dot com

... and in color http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0541.html and http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0542.html

the green stuff is obivously acid... and the Hero is a Paladin.

Email sent. Sunday is good. See you soon.

Andy, too bad you couldn't play tonight. Would of been fun to play it out. Well, I have to play another drone ship. Yay.

I haven't heard from Moose yet.

Ok, btw now I recall you use to be away working now and then?

This weekend is fine for me. I am at GMT+1 since I live in Sweden.

Moose, should we try play Sunday morning your time? I will be home and do some schoolwork that day so it would work fine for me.

Ok, no problems.

Ken and I were supposed to play tonight, but I have been derailed by having a job now. Hopefully, we can play next Wednesday instead (I haven't heard back from Ken yet). Which is, I think, the 30th.

Tugger loses to Droid
My streak of sucking as the Zin continues.
Well played game by Droid, sucking by me, well deserved win to him.

Tugger

You didn't suck and we could have saved and finished. I thought it was a good fight and I had a slight edge, but not a game deciding one. There would have been some nasty knife fighting for a turn or two if we had gone on!

Carl, I just cannot squeeze the game in. Thought tomorrow would be okay but I currently have 2 sick kids to take care of and my wife is working this weekend so there is zero chance of me being able to play tomorrow, which means no chance of us getting the game in before the deadline.3
Sorry.

Moose I see there are others that have not finished their games yet. If there is an extension we could perhaps play next weekend?

It was a very fun game, but one where the dice were grumpy for both of us, until the end when I found some happy dice, but Gregg's dice were still displeased.

I don't have the full log, so I might be off on a few particulars

Turn 1: We close, at moderate speed. I launched the scatter pack early, and slipped away to give myself some distance between the drones and me. Late in the turn I speed up, and we exchange fire alphas at range 8 with UIMs being used on both sides #6 to #6. I had some pretty heavy reinforcement on that shield, and neither of us hit all that well (we both missed with a disr and rolled weak for phasers) so my shield held with about 5 left. I was able to drop his shield for none in. He fired at two of the scatter pack drones and killed them

Turn 2: The ESG came up to deal with the drones, and I bravely turned off my disrs and ran away. Gregg went 9 for the first half of the turn, and then sped up to 14ish? This allowed me breathing room, so I did a wide loop to get my fresh #2 facing him. We ended at range 8ish, #2 to #2. I fired my facing phasers into his #2 so that I could still fire them next turn when I was pretty sure I would be running again. I also started a mini drone wave.

Turn 3: I fired my disrs and rolled quite badly missing with 2. This brought his #2 most of the way down. I then turned and ran away again. Gregg brought up another esg to deal with my drone wave, and chased after me. Late in the turn at range 8 before I managed to get away he fired at my #4 with most everything and lowered it with 1 int (he rolled very badly as well, although I don't recall the numbers). Also sometime during the turn I fired my rear phasers into his #1, hitting for 8.

Turn 4: At this point I was pretty low in power (as I expect Gregg was too). My phaser cap was at 1 and I had spent my batteries to run away as quickly as previous last turn. I was close to the west side, almost halfway up the board. Gregg was 9 hexes away more or less to the direct right of me. I was facing A and him E. I turned in moving 21 slowing down to 12 on imp 19. I am able to get onto his mostly down #2 at range 3 because of my better speed and turn mode. I fire and roll well on disrs 3/3 ovs and good on phasers, and give him 40 ints, which are distributed evenly. He hets to A to avoid more fire, although I was in fact empty. He fires his return at range 2, but on a mostly intact #2. He rolls really bad rolling 1,5,6 for his disr, and 6,3,6,6 on phasers, and so only gives 8 ints. More or less at this point Gregg concedes.

It was a fun match, but I would like to try it again with more average dice.

I was rereading some rules, getting ready for council, when I relised that my SS launched at Marcus on turn 4 of our match were launched in the wrong direction. They did not have Marcus in their FA. As their impact on the Fed during turn 5 was a major part of my victory, I feel I must concede the game. Congrats to Marcus.

Ron

Lightning hit the transformer on my block at about 7 PM; power came back at 8 local time (9 yours). Apparently I missed you by 10 minutes.

How does Wednesday of this week look for you?

Getting ahold of Ken. Trying to schedule a game. Is unlikely to be done by the 30th. But we are trying.

T1: I go 26/16 with an enveloper, he goes 16 with 28 at the end (can't be sure how much was battery). We close. He launches his fighters at R18 or so. At R12, I launch the enveloper. At R10, he fires 6 fusions (2 from ship, 4 from fighters), rolls well, does 12 damage to my #6. Hydran tractors fighters, but doesn't land them. Neither ship turns off, so we hit range 8. He fires his P1s and a std HB, taking down most of my #6. I cripple one of his fighters with 4xP1. Next impulse he lands his crippled fighter and hits me with an OL HB, which I block 5 with batteries and take 1 in (hull). He turns off, I turn in and fire 2 more P1 at his uncrippled fighter at R8, roll well, and cripple it. He moves next impulse, killing the tractored fighter. He runs out the plasma the rest of the turn, hitting it with a gatling on impulse 32.

T2: I go 16/24 as I have to rearm 6 phasers and my batteries. He goes 28/14, as he has to reload everything. He runs from the enveloper towards the west wall. I chase him slowly. He gats the plasma a bit more and eats it for 6 points after he slows down to 14. I speed up to 24 and chase him into the NW corner of the map. Sensing I'm only getting closer, he hits the wall and stops, and TACs around as I close in. I get to R5, shoot 6xP1 and S/F/F bolt on his #1. All bolts hit and he takes 26 in, hitting a lot of hull and some phasers, but no HB. I HET out to R6. He can't TAC anymore, so I fire 2 more P1s in his down shield, but hit not much important. He fires at my #4 and knocks a bunch of it off. I fly off, ending the turn at R10.

T3: I go 12 all turn, he goes 0 till 3 then 10 all turn. On 2 he TACs his #6 to me. I fly off, he chases as best he can. Eventually he has to turn his down #1 at me to get his HBs in arc before I leave R15, so he does, and we fire. Over a couple impulses, I hit him with 5xP1 for about 7 internals (more power, but still no HB). He hits me with a few P1s and 1 of 2 standard HBs, messing up my #4 more and doing 5 in (all hull and control). I turn back in and we end the turn at about R12. We both fix some shields on our down ones, and he gets a P2 back.

T4: I go 12/16/24, rearm my guns, arm a standard S torp. He goes 10/14. He has 2xP1, 1xP2, both gats, both HB, and 3 fusions, but is down 7 or 8 power. Turn in to get him as fast as I can. After I speed up to 24, I close pretty fast, and as I'm going to catch him anyway, he turns into me, so I get to R2 on impulse 16. He doesn't move the next couple impulses, so I launch my facing S torp, figuring it will either hit, or if he speed changes, I can get him in my battery tractor. He doesn't speed change or decel (possibly gambling that it is a pseudo). We both shoot. I hit his #2 with a few phasers, he hits my #2 with a gat and a few P1/2. Impulse 18, I turn in to R1 centerline and the S hits. He takes 11 in, followed by 24 from my phasers. He is a mess. We move once more, I get behind him. He launches his damaged living fighter, which I kill with my rear phasers. He gatlings my mostly up #3 for good measure, and resigns.

A fast, fun game vs an always excellent opponent!

Marcus wrote: "...I noticed the shuttle launching error at the end of turn 4..."

It is the responsibility of both players to know the rules and ensure they are used. If it were an EA problem or something else the opponent had no ability to discern, then I'd say the person making the error could be assigned a loss. In this case, Marcus noticed the error at a point where the shuttle launch and movement could easily have been corrected, but said nothing. The game will stand as originally reported.

The battle report is about four messages up.

Query - does playing a game and losing count as less of a loss than not playing a game at all?

RAT = Rated Ace Tourney. Winner gets a Rated Ace Pin and used to get to avoid someone else with an active Ace status (runs for 2 years) at Origins. When Origins fell to under 40 players, nearly all of whom had Ace Pins, that became meaningless.

RUT = Rebel Underground Tourney or whatever acronym Paul came up for it. It's an unofficial tourney Paul is running to try out different tourney formats. I gave him a few with different acronyms. One was SMARTASS. :)

Missed (obviously) the post by Pat.

As to your question - a loss is a loss - whether by loss, concession or forfeit.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Bill is headed down to Texas to take a job. He may be down for the count for this RUT round. Rut Roh

was for using the same counters for 20 years.

(I have fixed it)

I get really confused--my counters are always clean and white on SFBOL!

If Bill is moving, that's reason enough to give an extension. I am happy to give extensions if I know what is going on. Same goes for your game, Dan. Let me know what is happening and when you can play and I am happy to accommodate.

This weekend is my anniversary and next weekend is Council. As I said earlier score me as a loss for round 2 :), but I appreciate the thought.

At least you had the foresight not to get married on Columbus Day Weekend.

Leslie - I am moving and am in St Louis on my way to San Antonio to move in on Saturday. The cable company has promised to be on site at my apartment on Saturday between 1 and 5. I will send out an email to schedule when I am connected.

updated the two reported. Will put up a tree later this weekend. It wil include a Winner of, Loser of for the match between Bill and Leslie.

The Geek and I finished 2 turns last night.

I used the scatter pack and all add rounds. He launched 10 drones. I took 15 int, he took 34. We each lost a drone rack and a dis. I lost a p3 and a p2, he lost 2 p3 and 2p1. We each lost our #2 shield. He took 7 damage from a drone to shield 1, I took 4 wrap damage to each shield. We plan to continue on Tuesday.

So, three klingons advance! That is quite the invasion considering the numbers of players:)

When are the round 3 match-ups going to be posted? Or are we still waiting for a game to be played?

Today (Sunday), 3:00pm ET. I get to get tooled by an Orion. Again :-)

A nice, quick game vs an always good opponent. I totally stole Brook's Gorn vs Orion plan he used at Council, and it worked here. I don't expect it will ever work again for either of us :-)

Carl was flying the incredibly heavily gunned and power hungry HB, HB, Photon, Fusion, Fusion package.

T1: I plot 16/26 for 20 moves, hold a pair of standard S torps, and put 10 power in tractors. Carl doubles one engine, and moves some sort of 19/26/31 plot, overloading the photon and putting 1 power in tractors. We move up the middle of the map. At about R10, I launch a pair of pseudo torps. We keep closing, me slipping away to get plasma separation. We eventually get to R4, and I have to either put the plasma off his #1 or #6, and as he is moving 31, if I put it off his #6, he can just turn and run without even needing to HET, so I move the plasma off his #1. He shoots 4xP1, OL Photon, DF standard HB. Everything hits, and I take 6 internals. Next impulse, I turn into him, and rather than HETing away, Carl turns in to range 2 to get the other HB shot, skunking my plasma on the map. I check the movement chart to make sure I move next impulse (otherwise, I need to make an unplotted SC), but I do. I fire a couple P1s at Carl's #1, he hits me with a standard HB, doing 9 brutal internals (something like 3xP1 and an F torp). Next impulse I go forward and Carl HETs out to maintain R2. He mocks my on map pseudoes, so figuring the gig is up, I tractor him at R2, figuring I can get to effective 7 to beat 4 batteries and 2 allocated. I get him at effective 6 (12 power) and launch 2xS torp and an F torp (as I'm not centerlined). A couple impulses later, Carl takes 49 internals, is totally mangled, and resigns (well, he actually resigned after I got the tractor link, but I convinced him to play it out, 'cause I wanted to see what the Orion looks like after 80 plasma hits :-)

Again, a nice, quick game. Thanks to Brook for the clever plan, and apologies to Brook for posting the plan to the interweb...

Scheduled for Monday at 7PM EST

RATQ3 has been running since August. There isn't a Q4 RAT yet, no. Of late, we have been running about 3x RATs a year, so this isn't too out of the realm of reasonable (i.e. there have been 3x RATs in '09. And a World League.)

Ok.. I'll await startup.. yes.. meant Q4.. I"m a little behind this year :D

Tom

Two HBs are costly if you insist on overloading them. The damage increase is so small it is not worth doing it really.

Sorry to hear you got laid off. GL finding another job.

I beat captainron in a brutal 3 turn slugfest.

Hey Leslie, Someone told me that you live in Iowa. If so where? And what do you do? My plant is hiring.

Ron

I got greedy and went in close on T2. Should have stayed farther away and cleaned up the 10 drones on the board before doing that. Need more practice in this LDR thing...

Yep, living in Ames.

I'm a foreigner here ... currently working on an H1B as a 'computer systems analyst'. Chances are a 'plant' job won't qualify me for a visa.

On the bright side, heading back to Toronto tomorrow, got one, possibly two excellent interviews lined up. The only really sad thing is that one of them is after me because of my archaic skill-set, rather than my bleeding edge stuff.

One can now graduate from ISU in computers, without ever learning COBOL. And one simply cannot find any place in Iowa (ISU, UI, DMACC, etc) that teaches Assembler. Wells Fargo Mortgage is kicking butt right now, and their system is COBOL. The Financial division is hurting, and their system is written in Assembler. And both places are desperate to replace anyone who leaves the primary development teams, but, due to politics and policies, have been unable to do so for quite some time.

The slugfest continues- "slug" in the sense of "slow". We played turns 17-26 today. Jason is doing a bang-up job of avoiding my EPTs while plinking away with long-range disruptors and phasers. As a result my shields are in worse shape than before, I have used up all my CDR capability, and can't seem to keep moving more than two turns in a row because I need the energy to arm torps and reinforce shields :(

Jason did use his last weasel and I have one shuttle left. I'm down 5 power, two batteries, and an F-torp while Jason has suffered no internals yet. I've had plenty of opportunities to fire on weak shields but never seem to be able to do quite enough to penetrate. Meanwhile I have made several maneuver errors resulting in a bunch of internals that I really could have done without.

Situation at the end of turn 26:
We are 11 hexes apart, I am in the East-central area of the map facing E. Jason is Southwest of me facing F. I launched an EPT on impulse 32 that Jason is well-positioned to run out (as usual). I have an F-torp ready and potential fast-load on 27. My shields are 8/5/2/24/19/0, Jason's are 17/1/1/16/2/12. I have taken 26 internals so far and expect to see more before this is all over. God knows when that will be! We plan to resume next Monday at 7PM EST.

Crafty he is. I'll keep plugging away.

It would have been called at Origins as the game needs to have a reasonable time limit if people are going to get multiple games in per day. SFBOL, not so much, but I don't know how enthusiastic I am at 15 hour games either...

Offer tactical advice while the game is still going ;)

is ironic. Then surely anything is !

Does that mean anything?

Moose, are you available any weeknight after about 8pm PST? Probably not, since you are East Coast. I may be able to do a Sunday evening earlier than that. My sfbonline subscription expires next week, not sure I'm going to renew, so hopefully we can get this in. Let me know what times work for you.

Any way you want to do it is fine with me Paul.
Marcus and I have been missing each other for a couple weeks and we're both out of town for the weekend, So looks like next week some time at the earliest for us. If you want to keep things moving, I'm ok with it. If not, we will try to make it happen next week sometime